European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 7, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes William f. Buckley Tower s ski comments Hurt National defense John Tower deeply wounded a cause he has nobly served for so Many years namely that of the National defense. When he told the Senate committee that the strategic defense initiative Star wars could not Hope to protect every american from the threat of nuclear death he said something about As revealing As that the United nations cannot abolish original sin. Granted there was that melodramatic moment when president Reagan in 1983 seemed to imagine an impermeable balloon protecting the country from any aggressive nuclear insect. But sometime before Christmas 1983, it was Well understood by everybody this Side of the soviet Union and the Union of concerned scientists that no such ambition was worldly. That ski was about something else than total immunity. Former sen. Tower knows this As Well As Frank Carlucci and Cap Weinberger who have stressed the Point Over and Over again. By disavowing the original dreamy paradigm the effect was As though Tower had said that there was no Point in going to a doctor since we Are All going to die anyway. The new York times played up Tower s statement As though president Bush had announced his disillusionment with the whole ski business and one National paper concluded that Tower had sent outa Clear message namely that he would not Hector Congress for additional funds to develop ski and that Mikhail Gorbachev could take it Asun de stood that ski was something we were now putting on the bargaining table where president Reagan had consistently refused to put it. Insufficient thought has been Given with Here and there an exception rep. Les Aspin d wis., conspicuous among them to the limitations of the legendary triad on which we depend to defend ourselves. It is no longer a comprehensive listing of what it is that we need in order to survive. The triad is the architecture of our retaliatory forces. It comprises an air Force ground based missiles and sea based missiles the idea of Mutual assured destruction has been that the soviet Union would never dare to initiate a first strike Given that whatever its Success we would have left whatever the damage at least one leg of our triad. If our land based missiles were knocked out and also our bombers we would still have our submarines. What is much too slowly creeping into the consciousness of sophisticated defense analysts is that we need to protect Pur command posts. Our nuclear retaliatory forces will do us no Good at All if there is no body in sight to give them instructions. An illustration is Given by two defense scientists Anthony Lewis who gave the following to the editors of National re View take the satellite data reception and control Center at Sunnyvale Calif. A conspicuous Blue building known As the Blue cube it is one of the main ground stations for . Reconnaissance and Early warning satellites which would receive the first word of a soviet nuclear attack from our space warn ing network. The Blue cube is a few Miles from the Pacific coast and soviet missiles launched from a sub Marine lurking offshore could reach it in a matter of minutes. It is also Only a Hundred Yards from the free Way and the dishes it uses to talk to our satellites Are even closer. A Van packed with explosives parked on the shoulder of the freeway and detonated by radio would almost surely put it out of business. The Vulner ability of the . Command network has undermined the credibility of our nuclear  what can we do about this efforts Are being made to give us mobility for some of our missiles and command posts. But we need above All Protection for those that Are stationary so that they can elude first strike vulnerability. It is vital to get on with phase no. 1 ski a combination of land based and space based smart bullets the effect of which would impose mortal insecurity on any aggressive soviet aggression. These Are tested mechanisms by which soviet missiles would be targeted first As they arc Forward into the Atmo sphere second As they approach their targets. The aim is not to protect every american from every soviet bomb. Every american is protected from every bomb if there Are no bombs and the Point of ski is not immunity from massive soviet missile attacks but immunity from any possibility of soviet nuclear aggression. Joe blow is just As Safe if the soviet Union does not fire at All As he is if the soviet Union fired every thing into an impermeable umbrella which we can not build have no intentions of trying to build and ought not to speak about As Tower did As though it was Ever realistically supposed to be around the Cor Ner. And the Cost of phase no. 1 ski is about the same As or less than the Cost of our contemplated b-2 de sense system or of the midget Man alternative. Universal press Syndicate competency not ideology the test in Africa apis in Vita do a he said then states of Africa and Asia were fashioning their own More parochial ideologies but those too seem to have faded in Africa mfiv31?fconce"ied1 we the necessities of daily life food clothes shelter. They care not about a government s slogans but about its effectiveness. In those terms Zimbabwe is a Success Story. Robert Mugabe has an egalitarian socialist vision but he has not followed an ideological line. The country is prosperous. Zambia is a sad contrast. Its president Kenneth Kaunda is rightly honoured As a great figure in the african liberation move ment. But he has presided Over an appalling economic slide. Average real income in Zambia has fallen by two thirds in the last 15 years. Store shelves Are empty. The zambian government blames everything on external forces like falling prices for its Copper. Those problems Are real. But so Are corruption and the Folly of trying to run the Economy from an incompetent Center. For that reason i thought it was unfortunate that Jesse Jackson speaking in Lusaka this month denounced the inter National monetary fund As Lave Mas  the if makes mistakes but governments like Angola s understand that its disciplined advice has value. The Issue in Africa can be summed up in a phrase i heard somewhere in America last year competence not Ide ology. New York times